Editorial: Fix loopholes Blagojevich exploited

On Dec. 1, Chicago marked the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies in its history: the fire at Our Lady of the Angels School that killed 92 children and three nuns.

On Dec. 1, Chicago marked the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies in its history: the fire at Our Lady of the Angels School that killed 92 children and three nuns.

The passage of time has done little to abate the horror of that afternoon. Yet the Our Lady of the Angels School fire today is remembered as much for the swift and sweeping building safety reforms that followed it as for the sorrow that lingers five decades hence.

It's our hope that the impeachment proceedings against Gov. Rod Blagojevich will, decades from now, resonate in governance the way the Our Lady of the Angels fire does in public safety.

Without doubt, the immediate concern is getting Blagojevich out of office as soon as possible through a proceeding that is fair. We’d prefer that he resign voluntarily and immediately. But whether Blagojevich leaves on his own or not, the impeachment proceedings afford the General Assembly an unprecedented chance to examine and address some possible weaknesses in state law.

These weaknesses were exploited by Blagojevich for selfish reasons, and the result is both our current fiscal disaster and the reign of confusion in state government caused by a governor now governing while in legal limbo.

We have every reason to believe the House committee now conducting the impeachment proceedings will forward the case to the Senate for a trial. It would take an amazing feat of naivete to imagine any other result.

As the representatives and senators consider the evidence for removing the governor, they must also examine how Blagojevich so deftly circumvented the letter and/or spirit of numerous state laws. These, incidentally, are wholly unrelated to any of the charges that came out of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office on Dec. 9 and propelled Blagojevich and Illinois politics into the world spotlight.

Here are just a few of the things the House and Senate impeachment panels must consider:

--Blagojevich treated rulings of the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules’ and the Committee on Government Forecasting and Accountability as merely advisory. He freely ignored them, whether embarking on expensive health-care initiatives or closing prisons or arbitrarily moving divisions of state government. Is there a way the General Assembly could change this without violating the state constitution’s separation of powers?

--The governor has amendatory veto power, but Blagojevich used his veto pen to rewrite bills he didn’t like. Should there be more rigid guidelines for amendatory vetoes?

--If the General Assembly would not authorize money Blagojevich wanted, he sometimes shifted money from other places in the budget. (He did this in 2006 and 2007 to devote $15 million toward stem cell research.) Can the governor’s power to make such moves be curtailed?

--And then there is the biggie: Money. Blagojevich’s immediate legal troubles all are focused on money. Specifically, his race to squeeze big donations from campaign contributors before the new state ethics law takes effect Jan. 1 and to get big donations in exchange for President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat. If Illinois had a reasonable limit on personal contributions and stringent laws on corporate donations, Blagojevich probably would not have had the golden visions alleged by the feds.

This list just scratches the surface. The actual impeachment proceedings, we hope, will go far deeper. In the court of public opinion, Blagojevich proved himself unfit for office long ago. We expect the impeachment hearings will put an official stamp on that widely held belief. That will address our immediate concern.

Equally important, however, is that this proceeding provide a road map for avoiding another Rod Blagojevich in the decades to come.

State Journal-Register

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.